Shen'ihr

This is the story-based description of the Shen'ihr. For official rules on Shen'ihr characters, go here.

Shen'ihr is the name given to a race of technologially and physiologically advanced humanoids residing in the eastern reaches of our galaxy. Outwardly, they are indistinguishable from attractive humans. Inwardly, they possess a heightened intellect and are genetically predisposed toward psionics and ki power.

The Shen'ihr reserve a great paranoia against demons and magic in general, as it was once a tool that nearly destroyed them, as a people. Because of their experiences, these people are now largely oblivious of proper names for their race (frequently referring to it as "my people" and other variants) or their homeworld (using "the homeworld" and other variants), since it is believed that posessing such names can give a magical villain some power over them again. Only a few select persons of their government know these names. Because Cardinalian society is so dependent on proper names and designations for things, the astronomical society has named the planet "Beta Zion 3". The people of that planet, then, are sometimes referred to as Zionans. Native Shen'ihr may or may not answer to such a term, but will not use it themselves, in recognition of taboos.

The Homeworld

Geography

The homeworld of the Shen'ihr is a globe of similar size to earth, though very slightly larger. 60% of the planet's surface is covered in ocean, with the remaining 40% split between four landmasses and two polar ice caps. Three of the four landmasses can be considered very large islands (of comparable size to Australia), with the primary continent being of similar area to North America. The smaller 'subcontinents' were all, at one point in history, contiguous parts of one pangaeic landmass. The eastern and southern subcontinents (parts of Irandan and Medubaen provinces respectively) were created when a comet collided with the planet hundreds of millions of years ago. A tremendous crater in the ocean's floor between these three serves as a testament to that ancient disaster. The western subcontinent was removed from the main landmass by a powerful geologic upheaval several million years ago.

By human geographic standards, the primary landmass spans a full one hundred degrees of latitude from north to south, and approximately fifty-five degrees of longitude east to west. The northern edges of the continent lie at roughly 76-degrees north, the southern tip at twenty-four degrees south of the equator.

A tall range of mountains runs down the middle of the main continent. For several hundred kilometers in the northlands, this mountain range becomes a sheer cliff, with a drop of approximately two thousand meters at its highest point. Shen'ihr geologists conclude that this unusual formation is a direct result of the prehistoric comet that impacted the planet.